The Last of Us: Polish
by Dreams of Florence
Summary: Joel and Ellie add a little color to their lives


The Last of Us: Polish

"Joel!"

Joel immediately perked up upon hearing Ellie's voice downstairs. He tossed his book to the side and quickly made his way downstairs. He relaxed once he saw that Ellie wasn't in any immediate danger or didn't have any visible injuries or ailments. He was relieved when he didn't find anything.

Ellie couldn't help but roll her eyes and let out a little chuckle. Joel has certainly become a mother hen these past couple of months.

"What's up baby girl?" Joel walked over to Ellie, kissing her forehead.

"Look what Maria gave to me." Ellie excitedly made her way to a table and opened up the bag Maria gave to her. "We were scavenging this house not too far from the settlement and we found this bag that had all of these. Most of them were dried up or empty but we manage to save a few.

Ellie began pulling the items out. "There's red, pink, green, blue, silver, and black."

Joel cocked a brow at the items. "Nail polish?"

"Yeah! Maria even painted my nails too!" Ellie raised her hand to show her painted nails to Joel. Joel could conclude that Ellie couldn't decide on a color so she went with all of them. All her nails were painted a different color from the other, and all well done. It would seem that certain skills just couldn't fade away even with time.

"Looks good baby girl." Joel smiled.

"Did…did Sarah do this kind of stuff?"

Sarah being the tom-boy she was wasn't really concerned with stuff like this; getting manicures and/or pedicures. But she did enjoy giving them to her dear old dad. It brought on some teasing at work, but it was worth it to see his baby girl smile.

"She wasn't crazy about it, but more focused on getting them on me." Joel said with a slight smile, thinking back to the good old days.

He caught the mischievous glint in Ellie's eyes. Joel's eye widened a fraction, immediately regretting his words. It didn't take science to figure out what Ellie was going to ask.

"Not happening, Ellie." Joel replied.

"Aw, come on! I wanna practice!" Ellie said.

"Find another guinea pig, I ain't the one." Joel said laughing, making his way upstairs.

Making the mistake of underestimating his baby girl.

**~T~L~O~U~**

A week had gone by without incident. Ellie made no implication of her plans to add some color to Joel's nails. She mainly did them on herself, painting her nails and toenails almost every other day.

That was until today.

Joel and Ellie were playing poker and the stakes had been pretty low so far, ranging from who was going to do the laundry to who was going to cook dinner.

"If I win this round, I get to paint your nails, my choice of color." Ellie said with a sly smirk.

"You're on, baby girl. And I raise…you cooking dinner for a week." Joel replied.

"Deal." Ellie said. "Call it."

A silence fell between them.

"You know that thing I'm always yelling at you for? The thing you don't do in the bathroom?" Joel spoke.

Ellie thought back. There were a lot of things Joel scolded her for, but in good spirits though. But what popped into her mind was the more trivial one. It wasn't her fault, sometimes the damn thing refused to work.

"What, flush?" Ellie asked.

Joel smiled and placed his cards down on the table. "Let this be a reminder."

Ellie's eyes widened once she saw Joel's impressive hand. He had a flush. She scratched the back of her head, looking at her cards with a nervous face. Joel smirked, he had clearly won this round.

"You think we'll ever find some tapes or DVDs of some of the old shows you were telling me about?" Ellie asked, still staring at her cards. "What's that one you were telling me about? With that OCD dad, Danny Tanner?

Joel thought back. "Full House?"

"Actually never mind because I already have it!" Ellie exclaimed, slamming her cards down. "Boosh!"

Joel couldn't believe what he saw. Ellie played her hand and played it well. He was honestly impressed but soon groaned once he remembered the terms of this round.

"Sorry, Joel but I won this. And you know what that means." Ellie said with a mischievous smile.

"Can I at least choose the color?" Joel said. There was no way around this, he was a man of his word after all. All he could do is bare with it.

Ellie shook her head, making Joel groan.

Ellie laughed and went upstairs to retrieve the bag. When she came back downstairs she found Joel with his head on the table.

"Come on, take your manicure like a man!" Ellie said.

Joel lifted his head and sighed. He cracked his knuckles and placed them on the table, letting out a prayer that Ellie did not go with the most feminine colors. Maria salvaged hot pink, yellow, and purple two days ago.

Ellie reached into her bag and pulled out the bottle of her choice. Joel cocked a brow, shocked that she didn't go with pink or even red. "Navy blue?"

"I found it yesterday." Ellie opened it and began on Joel's left hand. "Plus this looks more like your color."

A comfortable silence fell between them as Ellie painted his nails. As much as he hated to say it, he liked how they were coming out, thanking the Gods that Ellie decided to show _some_ mercy when it came to the color. Once it was said and done and everything was good and dry, Joel admired her handy work. It was a bit rough around the edges but it came out very well done.

"Not bad baby girl." Joel praised.

Ellie smiled. "How about I cook dinner tonight? It's the least I could do." Ellie said softly.

Joel smiled and sat back, watching Ellie moving around the kitchen.

Maybe it wasn't _all_ bad.

**~T~L~O~U~**

Another week later and Maria had gifted Ellie with another set. This time there was white, light pink, colors with glitter, and even a white pen that could allow them to write or draw designs on their nails.

After several rounds of poker, each of which always came to a draw, they decided to follow through on both of the terms they set in place. Ellie requested that if she won, she could paint Joel's toenails as well and because he was oddly in a good mood his terms were that he would paint her nails. He didn't know where that came from but yet again, he didn't go back on his word.

Joel let Ellie choose the color and she went with silver, liking that color the most out of all of them. He gently grabbed her hands and focused. Since he somehow, _somehow_ got suckered into doing this, he might as well do it right.

Despite not having done it before, Joel managed to paint her nails thoroughly and neatly, looking almost professionally done.

"Not bad Joel." Ellie raised her hand to look at Joel's work. Not a line out of place. "Could I add in a request?"

"What's that?"

"Could you write Riley on my nails?"

Joel nodded and grabbed the pen. Beginning with her left thumb he carefully wrote the letters in script on each of her fingers.

"Could you write your name on the other hand?" Ellie asked softly.

Joel nodded his head and went to work. His name was a letter short of completely filling her hand so he decided to add in the first letter of his last name.

"M?" Ellie asked.

"My last name." Joel replied.

"What is it?"

"Miller."

"Miller." Ellie repeated to herself.

"Do you know yours?" Joel asked.

"Marlene told me, I think she said it was Williams or something."

Joel nodded his head upon receiving the bit of information.

Once Ellie's hands were dry, it was Joel's turn. Joel knew that this could take a while so he quickly went upstairs to retrieve his book. Joel sat down on the couch and picked up where he left off while Ellie sat down at his feet and went to work.

Joel was nearing the end of his book and Ellie was working his right foot went the door suddenly opened, Tommy walking in.

Joel's eyes widened and nearly dropped his book. He growled when he saw Tommy trying to hold in his laughter at the sight.

"A word to anyone on the settlement and I'll making your life hell." Joel threatened.

Tommy raised his hands in innocence. "Whatever you say bro." Tommy chuckled. "Anyway, just wanted to stop by and let y'all know that we'll be having a summer barbecue down by the lake tomorrow. You don't have to bring nothing but yourselves, dress comfortable and all that."

"We'll be there." Joel responded.

Tommy went to leave…but decided to be brave and have a bit fun with this.

"Oh, and Joel?" Tommy began. "There's a bit of a dress code when it comes to footwear. You must either wear open toed shoes or no shoes at all." Tommy laughed and left the house, leaving a slightly mortified Joel and an amused Ellie.

"You wouldn't happen to have nail polish remover in that bag, now would you?"

Ellie glanced sideways at the bag as she smirked slightly. "I think we're all out."

Joel sighed as he looked down at his toes. There was no way that this would come off by tomorrow. Then an idea popped into his head. Ellie had hers personalized, why not his?

"Baby girl, mind if I add in a little request?"

**~T~L~O~U~**

Everyone was down by the lake, enjoying the beautiful August day. The water was cool and inviting and not a single cloud dared to invade the blue sky.

Because of the_ state_ of his toes, he earned a few giggles, a few knowing glances, or just full blown laughter thrown at him, all in good spirits though. He shrugged it off mainly because of what Ellie did for him.

While sitting down on a blanket, he looked down at his feet to admire Ellie's handiwork. Ellie had painted his toes black and the white from the pen stood out proudly. He smiled and a tear slipped out when he looked at the writing.

Her name, Ellie, spelled out on the toes of one foot, the name Sarah on the other.

Maybe it wasn't _all _bad

* * *

OOOOooPS XD

_FUCK_ I'm dying this writer's block is _**killing** _me XD

This is weird, almost impossible I know. I don't even know the odds of finding nail polish in these times, they're probably close to zero. But this would not leave my head unless I wrote it...oh well XD

Hope you liked this funny little thing. Leave a review if you want =)


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